


This World is Changing (For You and Me, and I Don't Know Where I'm Going To)

by arborealstops



Category: Gilmore Girls
Genre: F/M, Post-Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life, Rory Gilmore/Jess Mariano - Freeform, teddy's back on their death shit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:33:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26434225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arborealstops/pseuds/arborealstops
Summary: Title from Rachel Zegler’s original song, Lonely World"Somehow she knew before she even walked over to his body that it was true.  She didn’t know when, or how, or why, but she knew.  Maybe it was because there was no rise and fall to his chest, or because she couldn’t hear the soft snoring breaths he made when he slept.  Maybe it was still just that feeling in her gut, or the shivers in her spine.  Or maybe it was some stupid soulmate-like connection that Luke would laugh at if she brought it up.  But still, even before she reached out to touch his cold, still hand, she knew what she would find."My dumb ass said "long title, no description" but just know that it's sad and it's incomplete and idk if it will ever be complete but when I posted the idea everyone on Twitter was like "I hate you for this when are you writing it" and so... I'm writing it.Pretty please leave some comments, even if they're just to yell at me.  I love comments.  Especially ones that are yelling at me.  :D
Relationships: Luke Danes/Lorelai Gilmore
Comments: 1
Kudos: 3





	1. Prologue / Preview

**Author's Note:**

> I really do apologize.

Their last night together was spent the way many of their nights were spent- debating going out for several hours, until it was too late to go out, and then settling down on the couch for a movie night. Neither of them liked to admit it, but they weren’t as young as they used to be, and the energy for late nights just wasn’t there anymore. 

Age hadn’t slowed Lorelai’s wit, though. She remained quippy as ever while _Casablanca_ played on the screen for what must have been the millionth time, quoting the iconic lines five minutes before they played and reprimanding the characters for every ridiculous decision they made. She snuggled up beside Luke, whose hand rested on her thigh, rubbing her knee when she got too worked up about the movie. Occasionally, he would lean over and kiss her, right at the greying hairs on her temple, and she would stay quiet for a few minutes. 

By the end of the second movie- _An Affair to Remember_ \- Luke was fast asleep. He looked so peaceful, his head resting against the back of the couch, that Lorelai decided to leave him there. Carefully, she removed the worn-out blue baseball cap from his head, pressing a kiss to his hairline before creeping upstairs to their bed. 

As she changed into a pair of comfortable Hello Kitty pajamas, she smiled softly. Rory, Jess, Lola, Liz, and TJ were coming to visit in a few days for Thanksgiving, and with Sookie back in town, they had planned to have a whole big affair. It had taken them a while, but all of them really had grown into a big family, and Lorelai was excited to have the whole gang back together. She’d heard that even Logan and his wife were coming to visit his daughter for the holiday, and she couldn’t help being happy about that. Despite what she’d expected of him, he’d been an even better father than Christopher ever was to Rory, and she’d ended up liking him more than she thought she would. 

Then again, she considered to herself as she crawled under the covers, her first impressions of Rory’s boyfriends hadn’t all been exactly accurate- she’d liked Dean, after all, and look where that had gotten them. And she hadn’t liked Jess, but he was proving to be an excellent husband to Rory and a wonderful step-father to Lola. So it was no wonder, really, that Logan had turned out better than Lorelai had expected. 

She sighed, smiling contentedly as she closed her eyes, still thinking of her family.

* * *

The next morning dawned bright and sunny, and oddly warm for so early in November. Lorelai was awake early enough that the sun was barely peeking out over the trees surrounding their house- a habit picked up from spending so many years with Luke accidentally waking her when he went to open the diner. 

It wasn’t Luke waking her this time, though. Lorelai felt a cold chill go down her spine and paused mid-stretch. Something felt off, but she couldn’t quite identify what. Tilting her head to the side, she cracked her neck, and then realized- the house was silent. It wasn’t entirely unusual for it to be quiet this early in the morning- Luke was kind enough to keep it down while she was still sleeping. But usually, she could hear that soft rustle of him shuffling around the kitchen while he made breakfast. And usually, he would kiss her forehead before he got out of bed, which Lorelai didn’t remember happening. Confused, she rolled over, checking for Luke. She was surprised, briefly, when she didn’t see him there, but it didn’t take long for her to remember that he’d fallen asleep on the couch the night before.

_He must not have made it upstairs,_ she realized, shaking her head with a small smile. Maybe next time they could watch a football game- that would be entertaining enough to keep him awake. If not, she had her own ways of preventing his sleep.

Still, though, the cold chill was at Lorelai’s spine, and something about it made her feel queasy. She couldn’t quite explain the feeling- somewhere between fright and dread, maybe, but it wasn’t a feeling she knew well. Sighing, she pulled herself out of bed, trying not to shiver. Despite the unseasonal warmth, she grabbed her robe and tiptoed down the stairs. 

“Luke?” she called softly as she descended. Hitting the landing, she turned to the living room to see Luke still on the couch, his eyes closed. She called his name again, and suddenly the queasy feeling in her gut solidified, and her whole body went cold. 

Somehow she knew before she even walked over to his body that it was true. She didn’t know when, or how, or _why_ , but she knew. Maybe it was because there was no rise and fall to his chest, or because she couldn’t hear the soft snoring breaths he made when he slept. Maybe it was still just that feeling in her gut, or the shivers in her spine. Or maybe it was some stupid soulmate-like connection that Luke would laugh at if she brought it up. But still, even before she reached out to touch his cold, still hand, she knew what she would find. 

Luke Danes, her husband, her best friend, was dead. And, suddenly, she was lost.


	2. One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lorelai calls Jess.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like I didn't get Rory's vibes quite right, but I can't seem to make her sound like herself in my head. Maybe that's because I don't like where she ended up after AYITL, maybe that's just because I don't have as many similarities with her as I do with Lorelai. Whatever the reason, I'm sorry about that, and I'll keep working on it. Also, there's more dialogue here than thoughts, I think, which doesn't seem quite right but at the same time I think Lorelai is still in too much shock to have a whole lot of thoughts/memories showing up, if that makes sense? I'm high-key basing this off of my response to my grandma's death earlier this year, which I know is nothing like Lorelai losing Luke but is the closest I have to base this off of. Anyway, I'm talking too much, please leave kudos/comments!!

There were things she needed to do. She knew that. Somewhere in her mind, she knew that there were people to call- Jess, and Liz, and Lane and Cesar and, well, everyone, really. She knew that things needed to happen, that he had to be moved, that she had to move. But she hadn’t been able to. She’d collapsed, right then and there, on the floor, staring dry-eyed at the couch, unable to shift her eyes to look at Luke- Luke’s _body_ \- or move at all, really. 

She didn’t know what to do. She’d never found a body before, never come across one in her own house, and she definitely hadn’t seen her husband’s dead body on her own couch before. Twenty-some years ago, she would have yelled for Rory, at the very least to tell her to stay out of the living room, if only to have something to do; ten years ago, if it had been anyone else, she probably would have called Sookie, babbling and confused; and yesterday- hell, twelve hours ago, she would have gone running to the man whose body she’d just found. If it had been almost anyone else, she would have known who to turn to, had at least a fraction of an idea of what needed to be done.

But this was _Luke_ \- her Luke, the town’s Luke, the diner’s Luke, Luke who had been there through everything, every part of her life for most of her life. Luke, who had given her thirty thousand dollars after she cried onto his shoulder, who threw her daughter a going-away party when she left for her dream job. The same Luke who had kept a crappy little horoscope in his wallet for _years,_ who probably still had that horoscope in there, tucked behind the picture of the two of them with Rory and Jess at their wedding celebration. 

That thought was the one that broke her. Somehow, the thought of their little family, and the fact that she was supposed to see them, and how happy they had been then, that was what broke her. The tears started streaming down her face and she couldn’t stop them, couldn’t slow them, couldn’t even move to wipe them away. She fell asleep there, curled up on the floor, the tears drying to her face where they still leaked out of the corners of her eyes.

* * *

When she woke again, a few hours had passed and somehow she had numbed slightly to the shock of everything. The tears still left trails on her cheeks, but these tears were slower, more manageable, and her brain had kicked into work-mode. The first call she made was to a hospital in Hartford. There would probably have to be some sort of diagnosis or something, and she certainly didn’t know how to do it. She made sure, though, that she called on her cell, and didn’t tell anyone in Stars Hollow just yet- they’d all find out soon enough, but Luke’s family deserved to know first. 

She debated for a long minute, after hanging up with the hospital, whether to call Jess, Liz, or April first. Clearly, Liz had known him the longest, and he was her older brother, but April was his daughter. Keeping both of those facts in mind, she still chose Jess first. Maybe it was that selfish part of her that wanted her daughter to know, that wanted Rory to come home a few days early and be with her, or maybe it was the fact that Luke had been such an important person in Jess’s life since that fall that he’d come to live in Stars Hollow. Whichever reason it was, it still led to Lorelai picking up the phone and calling her son-in-law first.

The phone rang three times before anyone picked up. 

“Gramma?” 

Lorelai winced as Lora’s voice came over the line. The little girl was almost seven years old now, and the thought of Jess or Rory having to explain what had happened caused even more tears to spill out of her eyes, and she almost lost it again. Taking a deep, shaky breath, she tried her best to sound chipper.

“Hey, Lora,” she replied, trying not to sniffle. “D’you mind if I talk to your dad for a minute?”

She could practically hear the grin on her granddaughter’s face. “Sure! _Daaaaaaaad!_ ” She shouted, and Lorelai winced at the volume. “Gramma wants to talk to you!”

Lorelai could hear her daughter shushing Lora from the other side of the phone, and suddenly she had to sit. She collapsed onto the bed, tears pouring from her eyes, as Rory took the phone. 

“Hey, Mom,” she greeted, sounding somewhat distracted. “Jess is downstairs working right now, did Luke need something?”

Lorelai couldn’t even try to hide the whimper at his name, and suddenly she was sobbing into the phone. 

“Mom?” Rory’s voice sounded alarmed, and Lorelai wanted to reassure her, wanted to tell her that she was fine, that she should go back to being with her daughter and working with her husband and it was nothing and she’d see her in a couple of days. She wanted to tell Rory to focus on whatever was distracting her, because she knew that, should she ever get the words out, Rory’s entire world would be flipped upside-down, and she didn’t want to have to be the one to do that to her only biological daughter.

But asking anyone else to do it would be unfair. “Luke’s- he’s- he’s gone, Rory,” she finally choked out. 

She could hear the confusion in her daughter’s voice. “Gone? Mom, you’re married, Luke loves you, you know he wouldn’t-”

“Rory.” Lorelai’s voice came out in a strange, strangled pitch, and Rory’s rambling stopped. “I mean he’s _gone,_ Rory.”

The silence on the other end of the phone was concerning. Lorelai hoped that Rory understood her meaning, because she didn’t think she could say it again. Admitting it to her daughter meant admitting it to herself, meant realizing fully that she would never again see Luke roll his eyes at her ridiculous antics, would never wake up to him pressing a kiss to her forehead again, would never be able to give him that quilt she’d started making out of his old flannels over the summer. 

“No,” Rory’s voice was soft, shocked. “But- but we were going- in a couple of days- I was going to- he can’t be gone.” Lorelai knew she was trying to figure it out, trying to piece everything together and make it work in that brilliant mind of hers. She also knew, however, that it didn’t work like that.

She had some idea of how Rory felt, having lost her own father not so long ago. She knew that the relationship between Luke and Rory was nothing like Lorelai’s had been with Richard, nor was it anything like Rory’s relationship with Christopher, but Luke had still been at least a little bit of a parental figure in her life for well over twenty years. If she hadn’t been so preoccupied with her own grief, she might have told Rory that it wasn’t easy, that small things would suddenly remind her of him, that she’d regret everything she’d never done with him. But she was feeling all of that herself, and suddenly she understood why her mother had reacted the way she had to her father’s death. Suddenly the whole house reminded her of Luke, from the bedroom that they had expanded together to the back door lock he’d replaced too many times to count. Even the tree in the front yard reminded her of the time he’d nearly killed himself trying to get into her house when she wasn’t home. 

Her sobs echoed over the phone line, and she curled in on herself. “He’s gone, Rory.”

Her daughter was quiet for a moment, then Lorelai heard her take a shaky breath. “I have to tell Jess.”

“No, let me.” It was nice for Lorelai to know that it still didn’t take much to put her back into mom-mode. Telling Jess would only be more painful to Rory, and besides, Jess was the one Lorelai had called to speak to anyway. But even before the words left her mouth, she knew Rory wouldn’t let her.

“Mom, no.” Rory’s voice was firmer this time, and Lorelai nodded. She understood why her daughter wanted to do it herself. She’d need time to process, to make sure she’d be able to help Jess when he got the news. She didn’t like it, but she understood it. “Please, let me tell him. Actually- let me call Liz, too, and April. You just… just make it through the day, okay? We’re going to come down- tonight, or early tomorrow. I know it’s a little early, but we’re coming. Okay?”

Lorelai didn’t have the energy to protest. “I love you, Rory,” she whispered.

“I love you too, Mom. I’ll see you soon.”

Lorelai just nodded in reply and hung up the phone.

**Author's Note:**

> If you wanna yell at me even more, my twitter is gilmorezegler, my tumblr is sundayinthcpark, and my instagram is arborealstops. I will not be at all surprised if you DM me just to yell at me.


End file.
